


new moon, new me

by Anniely



Series: saga [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - No Hale Fire, Alternate Universe - Twilight, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Family, Full Shift Werewolves, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Mates, Mention of torture, Minor Injuries, Miscommunication, Wolf Pack, cursing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 15:29:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28673004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anniely/pseuds/Anniely
Summary: After successfully surviving being chased and almost eaten by two crazy Alpha werewolves, Stiles figured it would all be smooth sailing from there.He only forgot about his recalcitrant magical abilities, his father who refuses to eat turkey bacon, and the romance novel levels of relationship drama his werewolf boyfriend is willing to put him through.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Series: saga [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/965937
Comments: 13
Kudos: 60





	1. playing wolves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everyone frolics.

Stiles stares up the sky, perfectly blue and liberally dotted with white, puffy clouds. The sun is already losing her summer heat, mellowed and ready for autumn, but Stiles is still sweating like a turkey the week before Thanksgiving.  
  
"You okay?" Scott asks, his puppy face appearing in Stiles' field of vision.  
  
Stiles groans instead of using the little air in his lungs to form actual words and holds out a hand to Scott, who takes it and easily lifts him back to his feet. Stiles wipes bits of grass and soil off the lacrosse gear he's decked out in. It’s the whole nine yards, too, shoulder and arm and rib pads, shin guards and helmet. Not that it has done him any good. Almost three months of practice, every other day throughout the summer holidays, and Stiles' abilities are still anything but dependable; or controllable in any way.  
  
At this point, Stiles thinks he would have more luck playing the stock market than ever actually figuring out how to use his magical abilities.  
  
Basically, Stiles has spent most of his summer holidays in the dirt and on his back – and not in a fun way (not that there haven't been fun times, but here there's dirt involved and Scott and that's just – ew) – with too many pounds of werewolf on top of him, pushing him into the ground and that will always, regardless of what you're wearing, be too many pounds of werewolf. Werewolves are _heavy_.  
  
"Okay," Stiles says, stretching until his back and neck crack. "One more time."  
  
He knows he is going to regret this tomorrow, when he will have to drag his bruised body back to school, but, really, what use are supernatural abilities if he can't even use them (and he's not even asking for much here; a bit of a protective shield, nothing more. It's not like he's trying to mind-control people or give himself better grades. Although it would be awesome if his abilities came with an instant coffee button).  
  
"You sure?" Scott wants to know, head tilted to the side and, seriously, Stiles is never stopping with the dog jokes.  
  
"Nope," Stiles gives back. "But when have I ever been sure about anything I'm doing?"  
  
Scott opens his mouth to answer, scrunches up his face, and closes his mouth again.  
  
"Derek?" he finally asks.  
  
"Eh," Stiles makes a so-so motion with his hands. "That was mostly a mix of ‘that dude is hot, that dude is creepy, that dude might be a werewolf’ and then suddenly he was also kind of cute and then we were dating?"  
  
There's silence and then Scott just shrugs.  
  
"Yeah, okay."  
  
And then they go back to Stiles having the everloving shit beaten out of him (thanks for nothing, stupid sparkly magic).  
  
  


* * *

  
  
Two hours later, Stiles is freshly showered and in his most comfortable clothes, melting all over his couch. He has a warm water bottle shoved behind the small of his back and a cold pack over his knee and feels like an eighty-year-old man. There's _Gravity Falls_ on TV and he is eating Snackimals straight out of the box stuck between his arm and the arm of the couch. Another hot water bottle and the remote are all within easy reach and Stiles lets out a sigh and swears to never move again.  
  
He's aching and frustrated and at the same time, like it has been since his magical abilities manifested, there's something itching under his skin, like his spark, as Deaton, the vet slash hoodo witch doctor slash walking encyclopedia of all things supernatural slash the most fucking cryptic and vague teacher Stiles has ever encountered, called it, is just waiting right there to be set free. Stiles still isn't sure what being a spark means. He might have some kind of werewolf-repelling shield with a loose connection, but the longer he trains with Scott and has nothing to show for it except bruises everywhere, the more Stiles starts thinking that maybe he just imagined it, or that maybe it was a one-time thing. Deaton has been assuring him that he is sure that Stiles' abilities are not a one-off and he all he need to do is keep practicing, but Deaton is about as reassuring as ‘We need to talk’.  
And Stiles is also the tiniest, slightest bit miffed that Derek had adamantly refused to help with the training if it could result in Stiles getting so much as a hangnail. If Stiles is being honest with himself, he can admit that he digs Derek's protectiveness. But he'd have also really liked having his boyfriend there while he is trying to figure out his spark magic thingy.  
  
With a deep groan, Stiles lets his head fall back against the couch and stuffs another handful of Snackimals into his mouth. He's just trying to figure out whether he is crunching on an elephant or a lion when something scratches at the porch door.  
  
"No, no, no," Stiles chants, without even turning to look. There's a 99.9 percent chance that it's Derek begging to be let in (and a 0.1 percent chance that it's some other Alpha werewolves that want to kill him), but Stiles is _hurting_ and he won't get up, not for all the curly fries and make out sessions –  
  
The scratching continues and is then joined by a pathetic whining.  
  
"By all that is holy, Derek," Stiles curses, heaving himself off the couch, "you better take my fucking pain so hard or help you Saint Ailbe."  
  
Stiles opens the patio door to a happily panting Derek, who isn’t looking the slightest bit guilty.  
  
"And also, why can't you use the front door like a normal person? I've been to your house, you have doors."  
  
Derek changes into a naked man and shrugs into the clothes Stiles keep in a basket next to the patio door just for these cases (yeah, he thinks to himself sometimes, those cases when a wolf suddenly turns into a naked person right in his living room).  
  
"Who is Saint Ailbe?" Derek asks, while he hops into a pair of socks.  
  
"The patron saint of wolves," Stiles says, and flops back onto the couch, which he immediately regrets as all his muscles scream in protest.  
  
"Why do you know that?"  
  
"I might or might not have gone on an extensive googling spree right after we started touching lips."  
  
"Touching lips?" Derek asks, jumping over the back of the sofa to sit next to Stiles, muscular thigh against not so muscular thigh.  
  
"Bumping uglies, my dude," Stiles gives back with his version of a leer on his face, which is mostly him waggling his eyebrows out of sync.  
  
"I –" Derek starts, rubbing his hands over his face, "I have nothing to say to that."  
  
"Has my wit and superior intelligence finally bamboozled you into speechlessness?"  
  
"Did you hit your head during training?" Derek asks, a slight growl in his voice that means that if Stiles says yes, it is likely that Derek is going to shout at poor Scotty, which, really, he has no leg to stand on. He was also in favor of Stiles practicing his abilities, he just didn’t want to get involved himself.  
  
"Nu-uh." Stiles smushes his face into Derek's also ridiculously, muscled arm. "But pretty much every other part."  
  
"Poor doe," Derek murmurs, so quietly Stiles almost doesn't hear him. Derek's not much for pet names, but every now and then one will slip out and Stiles treasures them all, all the mid-sex and make-out babes and does and, on one occasion, even a love.  
  
Because Derek, for all of his werewolf growliness and emotional constipation, is An Awesome Boyfriend (capital letters definitely deserved), he puts his hand on Stiles' neck and takes his pain. Black lines snake up over his arms and Stiles sinks into the couch like he’s an overcooked spaghetti.  
  
"Oh yeah, baby."  
  
He'd lift his arm for a high five, but the only negative side-effect to Derek's pain-sucking abilities, if Stiles were to call it negative, is that Stiles always feels like all his bones have been liquefied. It's almost like the aftermath to a very good orgasm, except without all the tingly feelings and no sign of stubble burn anywhere on his person (Stiles really very much appreciates Derek's beard. He once photoshopped the beard off a picture of Derek he had taken with his phone and it made Derek look like a very bald cat; still cute, but also somehow wrong.).  
  
"Carry me," Stiles slurs, making grabby hands toward Derek who shakes his head in mock exasperation but obliges his doe-eyed boyfriend.  
  
He picks him up, as effortlessly as he does everything else that requires just-a-little-more-than-human strength, and throws him over his shoulder in a fireman's carry.  
  
"No!" Stiles squawks, hanging over Derek's shoulder like a sack of flour. "You're supposed to carry me bridal style. Not this caveman thing! Derek!"  
  
"You told me to carry you, you didn't specify how," Derek gives back, sounding way too smug for Stiles' taste, as he makes his way up to Stiles' room.  
  
"Oh ha very much ha, really funny, asshole wolf," Stiles grumbles. His nose is very, very close to Derek's ass, which moves nicely under his tight jeans. If Stiles were a stronger man, the sight of a well-dressed ass would not be enough to deter him from his righteous anger, but alas, he is just a sweet bisexual with a constant boner for his hot (and funny and kind of dorky, okay, he's not some kind of sexual objectify-ist) boyfriend's everything. He sighs and silently allows, not that he'd tell Derek, that being carried like this isn't actually all that uncomfortable.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
In his room, Stiles is unceremoniously dumped onto his unmade bed, where he bounces twice before ending up sprawled mostly in the middle, legs akimbo and arms crossed in front of his chest in a fake show of indignation.  
  
"You dragged me into your cave, so what now, wolf-man?"  
  
Derek makes a considering noise, standing at the edge of the bed looking down at Stiles.  
  
"I can think of a few things," he says, lowering himself onto all fours to hover over Stiles.  
  
"Can you now?"  
  
Derek drags his nose up the side of Stiles' neck instead of answering. His warm breath makes shivers run up and down Stiles' spine, makes heat curl in his belly. He's almost embarrassed at how easy he is for this man. He leans his head further to the side to give Derek more access to his throat. The wolf makes an appreciative grumble, replacing his nose with his tongue and starts drawing lazy circles on Stiles' skin, pausing at random places to nip there with blunt, human teeth. He is not biting hard enough to leave marks – not yet, Stiles knows, and that too adds to the heat already spreading through his body, the knowledge that tomorrow morning there'll be bruises in the most random places all over his body. Derek once left one in Stiles' armpit which Stiles found when he went to put on deodorant.  
  
At the beginning of their relationship, Derek was insecure and hesitant about leaving marks and about using his strength when they were in bed together. It took some gentle coaxing, some not-so-gentle calling Derek names (because really, there is only so often one can enthusiastically consent to any and all sexy times before one has to bring out the big guns), before Derek and Stiles were on the same page sex-wise, namely: "For fuck's sake, Derek, we're both adults! If you do something I don't like, I'll tell you. You think I ever had a problem with talking? And if I do something you don't like, just bark or whatever. I'll get it. Despite all the evidence to the contrary you and dad like to point out, I am actually pretty smart."  
  
Thankfully, that was that. Consent given, consent finally understood, all possible pants lost, commence the orgasms.  
  
He is drawn out of his head by Derek biting his nipple a little too hard.  
  
"Ow, what the hell, Derek?" Stiles pushes at the wolf's head who looks up at him, one judgy eyebrow lifted judgingly.  
  
"Am I boring you?" Derek asks.  
  
Stiles pushes his hips up, rubbing his already hard dick against Derek's stomach.  
  
"Bored is not the word I would use."  
  
"No?" Derek's hands wander down Stiles' sides to the waistband of his sweat pants and he lifts his other judgy eyebrow as well.  
  
"No," Stiles repeats, voice going thready when Derek pushes the gray material down his hipbones and to the middle of his thighs.  
  
"What word would you use, then?"  
  
Derek's thumbs are brushing the hair around Stiles' dick almost absentmindedly. If Derek keeps it up, Stiles might come just from this (what, he's still a teenager).  
  
"Word," he murmurs, trying to not so subtly push closer to Derek's hands.  
  
Because Derek likes to torment him and rob him of his last remaining brain cells, he lowers his face to the top of Stiles' thighs, rubbing his beard against the skin there and all Stiles can do is throw his head back and scrabble for purchase on the mattress. His sweatpants are being slid completely off his legs and thrown somewhere, Stiles is sure, because Derek loves to throw his clothes around but Stiles doesn’t care. Derek posed over him like the predator he is, smug grin on his face, his jeans tented obscenely.  
  
"Off," Stiles slurs.  
  
"I'm sorry, what?" Derek asks mischievously and puts both his hands on Stiles’ dick, moving them up and down in a barely-there caress. "You want to get off?"  
  
"Hm, no."  
  
The hands stop.  
  
"You don't want to get off?"  
  
"Fuck, you, Derek … Take your shirt off, get naked, _now_."  
  
Stiles’ sex voice is a wondrous thing, because Derek moves quickly to comply. Stiles bares his throat even more, head thrown back and mouth open, just to hear Derek growl again, deep and animalistic. The teeth Stiles can feel against the thin skin over his Adam’s apple suddenly seem to have sharp points and Stiles can’t help the whine that escapes him because he is suddenly _so fucking close_.  
  
It doesn't, however, make Derek nibble on him some more. Instead Stiles' front is suddenly cold and devoid of werewolf, who is now crouched at the end of the bed, looking at Stiles like he just admitted to liking dolphins better than wolves.  
  
"Whaaa –" Stiles manages, barely. "No, baby, come back."  
  
"Stiles," Derek growls, the _s_ sound slightly lispy around his fangs.  
  
"Derek," Stiles grumbles back and heaves himself into a sitting position. "Despite what you might think, Mr. Wolf-Man, growling my name isn’t actually a sentence."  
  
Because he hasn’t been brought up in a cave, Stiles pulls a pillow from behind his back and puts it over his junk. Can’t have important conversations with your junk out.  
  
"So, talk to me, big guy. Something obviously freaked you out. Did I do something wrong?" he asks, once he is sufficiently covered.  
  
The moment he says it, a heavy weight drops into his stomach. While he and Derek did take the slower route to sex, they never really had a long talk about their personal preferences in bed; they both just kind of learned by doing. What if he has been bad-touching Derek the whole time?  
  
"Stiles, Stiles, hey, breathe for me." Derek’s there again, right in his space, his hands big and warm on Stiles' face. "Breathe, you're okay. I’m sorry."  
  
"No, what – why are you sorry?"  
  
"I’m …" Derek scrubs a hand through his already messy, dark hair. "You didn’t do anything wrong, you need to believe me, never."  
  
"Thanks," Stiles whispers. Derek might not believe him whenever he tries to persuade him to try sauerkraut, but it’s good to know that Derek’s trust in him hasn’t been misplaced.  
  
"But I just lost control. That shouldn't – that _can’t_ happen."  
  
"Wait, what?"  
  
"I lost control over my wolf, Stiles."  
  
"Are you telling me you freaked out because sexing me up is so awesome that you got all wolfy on me? Is sex with me your own personal full moon?"  
  
"Stiles, this isn't funny. I could have hurt you!"  
  
"Okay, so first, no. And second, hell no. You could never hurt me. You are literally the fluffiest, least scary wolf I have ever met. You would never hurt me."  
  
"But I could have."  
  
"Baby, Derek," Stiles climbs into his wolf’s lap and is glad that Derek hasn’t taken his pants of yet. Having a conversation dick to dick is even worse than having it naked. "I hate to tell you this, but I am a squishy, breakable human. A lot of things could hurt me. But I know that you will never be one of those things. You said you knew I wouldn’t hurt you, so I need you to trust me on this, too. You won’t hurt me."  
  
At Stiles’ words, Derek buries his face in Stiles’ neck again, teeth safely tucked away, and breathes heavy breaths there. Stiles strokes his back, painting big strokes with his hands up and down Derek’s broad back and then scritches the short hair at the base of Derek’s neck. He knows Derek's not a dog, but in some things he is absolutely a dog. Not that Stiles cares – he's a sucker for a cuddle.  
  
It must be terrifying, Stiles thinks, to be afraid of what you’re capable of.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
The next morning, Stiles wakes up half smothered under his wolf. Derek is draped over him, arms around his torso, breathing into his ear. Since Derek is running a lot hotter than non-werewolf humans, Stiles is glad they both feel asleep mostly naked. The downside to being blanketed by his werewolf is that Stiles’ bruises are making themselves known again; Derek’s weight is pressing right into his tender ribs. He cranes his head to the right, where his old Yoshi alarm clock is proudly displaying the time (yes, he’s got a phone but he also has the habit of leaving his phone in the bathroom, or, one time, in a DVD case). Yoshi tells him it’s 6:54, which means that if he wants to get in a good bit of making out before going to school and also have time for coffee and maybe breakfast, he’ll have to get up now anyway.  
  
Stiles touches the tip of his nose to Derek’s ear. Where Stiles’ ears are an erogenous zone for him, Derek’s ears are the only place where the wolf is ticklish; feet, armpits, sides – nothing, but get his ears and you can make him giggle like a five-year-old. Derek twitches at the first touch of nose to ear and whuffs into Stiles’ neck. Stiles repeats the touch and gets a bigger twitch.  
  
"No," Derek grumbles and tightens his grip around Stiles.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Nu-uh."  
  
"Yea-hu." It’s always been a source of great entertainment that Derek is even more of a grouch in the mornings than Stiles is. "I don’t wanna be late for the first day of school."  
  
"I’m not in school anymore. Stay."  
  
"But I am," Stiles gives back. "And I need to be a responsible adult and get up, because otherwise my dad is going to disinherit me."  
  
"Sucks."  
  
"Yes, yes it does. You gonna let me go?"  
  
Derek whuffs again, but his hold loosens and he heaves himself to the side. With his job as a ranger (Stiles has to admit that it took him three weeks of dating Derek to actually ask his boyfriend where he was going off to each morning), Derek and his colleagues have more flexible schedules than Stiles’ poor high school student self. Also, despite not being a morning person, Derek needs decidedly less time to get ready once he finally rolls himself out of bed than Stiles, who likes to have a long and meaningful conversation with his coffee and also take a long shower and change his mind about today’s t-shirt five times.  
  
"Thank you," Stiles says and gets out of bed with a groan as every muscle in his torso seizes up. "On second thought, I think I changed my mind. It’s not like there’s much to be inherited anyway."  
  
Derek pulls himself across the bed so that he can stretch his arm to touch Stiles’ thigh and take away the pain. Stiles manages to turn around despite his noodley limbs and kisses Derek’s nose.  
  
"Thank you, boo."  
  
"Go to school, child."  
  
With a final peck to Derek’s lips, Stiles trots off to get some coffee started. Only half-way down the stairs does he remember his plans of making out with Derek. He shrugs his shoulders. Coffee first, and maybe then he’ll be able to lure Derek out of bed for a shared shower.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
The first day and the first weeks of school pass relatively painlessly. Throughout the first week, every teacher gives them some variety of the 'This is your final year, college is coming' speech that freaks out half the students and bores the other half to tears (there have been legitimate tears, Stiles was there, it wasn’t pretty). There are already seniors who have color-coded and itemized lists of all the colleges they’re interested in and want to apply to. Scott, when he sees Allison's lists, turns to Stiles, eyes big with panic, and asks if Stiles already knows where he's going to college. Stiles only throws his arm around his best friend's shoulder, trying not to wince, and says, "Dude, I don't even know what I'm going to make for dinner tonight."  
  
It’s not that Stiles doesn’t think about college at all. He thinks about Berkeley, his mother’s alma mater, and Ohio State, where his dad went. But his world suddenly got so much larger when he found Derek and a pack and he finds it very hard to worry too much about college (and even harder to even contemplate leaving Beacon Hills, where everything and everyone he loves the most is).  
Luckily, his dad has not yet started leaving leaflets and brochures of every college in the country around the house; apparently Allison’s parents are very adamant about her going off to college away from her werewolf boyfriend, which does explain the lists somewhat (Stiles thinks it’s very unlikely that Scott is not going to go to the exact same college as Allison, but Mrs. Argent is one scary woman so Stiles isn’t going to tell her that).  
  
Thankfully the college talks peters out after the first month and then it’s mostly back to business as usual, meaning boring old English reading material and useless biology quizzes, all to the tune of Coach Finstock’s shouting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who commented/left kudos on the first stories. I am so grateful for all your kind comments and feedback! Here's to round two. *raises mug of tea*
> 
> And here are three more things:  
> 1\. This story is fully mapped out, but not yet completely written/edited. I hope to update every two weeks.  
> 2\. There will be no – not even a small one – love triangle here. They are useless and I hate them.  
> 3\. This is an amalgamation of ‘New Moon’ and ‘Eclipse’ because let's be real, nothing really happens in ‘New Moon’ other than Taylor Lautner’s abs and I can do without those.


	2. northern lights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there's a training montage.

"Okay, doc," Stiles says, waltzing into the vet’s. It’s the middle of October; school by now is the normal mix of useless information and annoying hustle, and this is the first time in weeks Stiles has had the time to visit and bug Deaton. "Seriously, how do I turn these babies on?"  
  
He leans over the counter and wiggles his hands in Deaton’s face. The vet looks at him with his customary blank expression, not even an eyebrow lifted, and keeps sorting different colored and sized pills into small pill cases.  
  
"Mr. McCall tells me you have been practicing," he says.  
  
" _Mr. McCall_ has been throwing me all over Beacon Hills and this –" Stiles jazzhands, leaning even further into the vet’s space, "is still _not working_."  
  
Deaton doesn’t seem particularly impressed with Stiles’ finger-wiggling or his plight. He fills another container, then closes it up with all the zen-like calm of a Tibetan monk or the truly stoned (Stiles would so not be surprised) and washes his hands at the small sink behind the counter.  
  
"Come with me," the vet says as he dries his hands and gestures for Stiles to follow him through the doors that takes them to the cages.  
  
"Come with me," Stiles hums under his breath, really hoping that Deaton isn’t about to don a top hat, "and you’ll be in a world of pure imagination."  
  
The room that Scott likes to call Puppy and Kitten Hostel is just as it was when Stiles first came here with Scott, shortly after they got their epic bromance on. The walls are still the muted gray of modern interior design that would drive Stiles absolutely crazy, but the spacious cages are all furnished with soft and fluffy blankets, chew toys and water bowls.  
The second Deaton enters the room, the noise level ramps up, the cats beginning to purr and the dogs starting to bark happily.  
  
"Hush," Deaton says and raps against the door twice.  
  
The noise dies down as fast as it started.  
  
"Wow," Stiles breathes. "Why don’t you teach me that?"  
  
Stiles has seen Talia do the exact same thing as pack Alpha and Stiles would absolutely, please and thank you, be able to make people shut up like this as well.  
  
"Some skills can not be taught, Mr. Stilinski," Deaton gives back. "Some, however can."  
  
The way he says it makes Stiles think of Morpheus inviting Neo down the rabbit hole, which then makes him wonder if Deaton got his whole mystic aura-thing he’s got going from watching too many sci-fi movies during his formative years.  
Stiles watches Deaton go over to a purple metal box and take out a pair of scissors that are formed like a crab’s claws at the tip. He holds the scissors out to Stiles, who eyes at them dubiously before taking them.  
  
"What, is this going to be some kind of _Karate Kid_ kind of thing? Are you going to make me cut a lawn with those to teach me patience or something?" he asks, turning the scissors this way and then. The handle is a nice, unobtrusive pink color with sparkles.  
  
It wouldn’t actually surprise Stiles if Deaton sent him out to mow a lawn by scissors. The vet seems like the kind of person who’d really dig Mr. Miyagi’s style of teaching. He’s probably also a fan of Morpheus. And Dumbledore. Mysterious and oftentimes thoroughly unhelpful men. (On the other hand, if Deaton asked him to cut a lawn with scissors but promised that it would, for once, actually help Stiles finally get the hang of his powers, he’d probably do it. By now, he is just that close to the edge of desperate.)  
  
"Are you allergic to cats, Mr. Stilinski?" Deaton asks, moving to the back of the room. On a table is a small cat bed on which a tiny black cat is currently washing herself. As Deaton picks her up, the little cat stops its grooming and immediately butting against any part of Deaton she can reach.  
  
"Nope," Stiles says, watching as Deaton picks up the now loudly purring kitten. It just figures that cat’s love the mysterious motherfucker; they probably sense a kindred spirit.  
  
"Wonderful."  
  
With that, a kitten is dumped into Stiles’ arms.  
  
(The smallest thing that Stiles has ever held in his arms was a deputy’s baby, back in Seattle, and Stiles almost had a heart attack when the mother dumped the tightly swaddled bundle into his arms. He held the baby for the appropriate amount of twenty seconds, then gave her back to her mother when she started crying.)  
  
For a moment, he and the cat are both too dumbfounded to react and just stare at each other. Then the cat unfreezes and makes its dissatisfaction in the sudden change of cuddle partner known by digging its claws into Stiles’ arm through his hoodie.  
  
"Ow, no, ow, ow," Stiles chants, trying to detach the claws from himself without harming either the cat or his hoodie. "Ow, no, come one. I’m sorry I smell like dog, it’s my boyfriend, I swear."  
  
It takes a bit of maneuvering, but finally Stiles manages to free his hoodie and arm from the kitten’s claws. He stuffs the scissors into his back pocket and puts his hands around her slim torso. The cat looks almost comically small in his hands, when lifts her up to eye level (but at a safe distance away from his face. He is, no pun intended, attached to his eyes).  
  
"Now, Nala, I’m not Simba, I’m not an idiot, no need to maul me."  
  
A low cough reminds Stiles that he and Nala are not alone in the room. He looks away from the glaring kitten to find Deaton regarding at him with a bemused expression on his face; one of his eyebrows might even be lifted a fraction of an inch.  
  
"Oh, yeah sorry," Stiles says and manages to move the cat into the crook of his elbow, where she immediately attacks his sweater again. "You were going to tell me about your super awesome magic ability training plan that apparently involved vicious kittens?"  
  
"I’d like for you to trim this cats claws, if you please. If you don’t know how to do it, there is an instructional brochure over there." Deaton gestures to a pinboard.  
  
"I’m sorry, what?" Stiles splutters. Mr. Miyagi indeed. "Of course I’ve never done that before! What if I hurt her? Do you see her?" He lifts her up again and holds her out to Deaton, the kitten squirming like an eel in his hands. "There is bound to be blood. Most likely hers _and_ mine. Really? Really, doc?"  
  
"I have the utmost faith in you, Mr. Stilinski," Deaton simply sayswhen Stiles has to stop talking in order to breathe. "Make sure only to cut the white, very tip of her claws and all will be well."  
  
With those words of wisdom, he leaves.  
  
The door closes behind the vet and all the animals suddenly seem to decide that now is the time to start a choir – a very out of tune, very loud choir. Stiles looks at Nala, who looks back at him while trying to eat his fingers.  
  
Stiles has a very bad feeling about this.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
An hour later, hoodie a lot more scratched up than it was before and with a considerable amount of blood stains on it, Stiles pushes open the swinging door into the main part of the vet’s practice. Nala, comfortably snuggled into the crook of his arm now, is sleeping the sleep of the successful people maulers.  
  
Deaton is standing at the counter, patting an excited terrier that is sitting on the counter in front of him, while explaining the dog’s medication to his owner.  
  
"If he still shows the same symptoms or he gets worse, please come see me again," he says.  
  
The terrier’s owner picks up his tail-wagging dog, shakes Deaton’s hand and leaves with a curious dog at Stiles. He does probably look like he lost a fight with a herd of cats.  
  
When the door has closed behind the, Deaton turns to Stiles.  
  
"All done, I assume, Mr. Stilinski?"  
  
"So done, doc. Nala better not have rabies, because if she does, I might have to go get some shots."  
  
"I assure you," Deaton says, crossing his arms in front of his chest, "Beryl does not have any kind of disease. She is my cat after all."  
  
"You – what, you used me to groom your cat? Why? She had claws like a freaking Velociraptor! I’m scratched to hell!"  
  
"Is that so?" Deaton asks and Stiles doesn’t like the look on his face, like he knows something Stiles doesn’t.  
  
"Yes! I was there!" He waves the arm not currently cradling the still sleeping kitten under Deaton’s nose. " _Scratched to hell_."  
  
"It seems to me that your sweatshirt is the only victim of this lesson."  
  
"What?" Stiles asks and leans down to inspect his hoodie sleeve.  
  
His sleeve is actually scratched to hell. The material looks as if it lost a fight against a meat grinder and at some points Beryl’s claws went through the fabric. But even where her claws should have cut into Stiles’ skin, the skin isn’t actually broken.  
  
"Doc, this is _really_ freaky. I felt her claws on my skin. Is your cat magic? Because if I had healing skill, I think I’d know by now!"  
  
Stiles isn’t anywhere near as clumsy as a YA book main character, but he does get scratched and bruised a lot. He doesn’t think there’s any way that, should he have healing abilities, those wouldn’t have triggered sooner.  
  
"You do not have healing abilities," Deaton says and Stiles takes a deep breath. He doesn’t know how well he could have dealt with another supernatural ability on top of his unreliable shield-werewolf-repellent magic.  
  
Deaton steps closer and gently takes Beryl from Stiles’ arms, cradling her against his own chest.  
  
"If I don’t have healing abilities, why am I not hurt?" Stiles asks. "That isn’t normal."  
  
"Have you not recently discovered certain abilities you were not previously aware of? Abilities that might be described as supernatural?"  
  
"The werewolf repelling?" Stiles looks down at his hands, wiggling them like it’s going to make them break into song and dance and explain everything to him in small and simple words. "If my spark is a werewolf shield, why would it work against scratchy kittens?"  
  
"Sparks manifest in many different ways. Some people get attuned to the supernatural. Some people develop a talent for herbs and potions. I once met a spark who had true dreams of the future. Your spark, Mr. Stilinski, manifests, as you have just said, as a shield. It is not a shield against the supernatural, it is a shield against anything that wishes to harm you."  
  
Stiles nods slowly. "So I’m not healing, I’m shielding? But, doc, why hasn’t this ever worked before? When I was six, I drove my bike right into a rose bush."  
  
"A spark needs a trigger, something to jump-start it, so to speak. A traumatic experience will most often do the trick."  
  
"But not any traumatic experience, because let me tell you those thorns weren’t cuddly," Stiles says, but he is thinking about his mother and how he felt after she died.  
  
"No, not any traumatic experience," Deaton agrees gently, like he knows where Stiles’ thoughts went. "You have to know, there are no studies on this, no official research. Everything I know about sparks, I have learned from one. As far as I can tell, the experience that serves as a trigger has to be in some way related to the ability your spark manifests as. Most often it also involves another supernatural element."  
  
"Why didn’t you try the cat-mauling thing before? Why let Scott beat me up?"  
  
"I truly believed that since your spark manifested itself first while in a physical confrontation with a werewolf, it would be most likely that by creating a similar situation you would be able to call upon your spark."  
  
"Right. And what do we learn from this?"  
  
"What did you learn from this, Mr. Stilinski?"  
  
"That cats are superior beings and that Scott can stop beating me up?"  
  
Deaton nods, apparently satisfied.  
  
"I expect you here tomorrow after school. There are more cats that will need their claws trimmed."  
  
Stiles gapes, aware that he has been had and kind of awed at how masterfully it was done.  
  
"I don’t suppose you’ll actually explain to me how to use this supernatural magic shield-y thing before you’re letting your Egyptian goddesses mince my arms?"  
  
"Where would be the learning effect in that?"  
  
  


* * *

  
  
The following couple of weeks pass in a blur of cats claws and destroyed hoodies. The fifth time his dad finds Stiles sitting on the couch trying to stitch up the worst of the rips in his hoodie sleeves with pink yarn, he gets out his wallet and holds twenty bucks out to Stiles.  
  
"Buy yourself some more yarn or a hoodie or, you know, a new t-shirt so that you can leave the hoodies at home, Stiles."  
  
"But, dad, the hoodies are part of my image."  
  
The sheriff shakes his head and stuffs the twenty Dollars into the hood of the sweatshirt Stiles is currently wearing.  
  
Despite all the hoodie casualties, Deaton’s latest training method seems to work. Stiles walks into the vet’s office chanting ‘I will not get fucking mauled by kittens today’ and what hadn’t worked with Scott for some reason works with cats.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
"So, doc," Stiles says, ambling out to where Deaton is working on the office computer, "I have officially mani- and pedicured all of your cats."  
  
"So I see, Mr. Stilinski," Deaton gives back and looks Stiles up and down. "And none the worse for wear."  
  
"Nope." Stiles hops onto the counter next to Deaton, swinging his legs. "But how do we know that this wasn’t just a fluke? Maybe I’m just a really talented cat claw trimmer. Maybe I just got better at evading the claws."  
  
"Is that what you think happened?"  
  
"I –" He rubs is hand over his hair. "No. I feel like it did something on purpose, but I don’t know how I did it on purpose. Like, if Scott had a go at me right now, I don’t think I could shield anymore than I could before? I know what it feels like now, but I don’t know how to control it."  
  
There is silence between them, disturbed only by the sounds of the animals in the other room, as Deaton looks at Stiles.  
  
"Follow me," the vet finally says. He saves his work, shuts off the computer screen and motions Stiles to follow him.  
  
"Oh god," Stiles groans, "you don’t have another room full of cats somewhere, do you? Because that would not surprise me, at all."  
  
Deaton doesn’t answer, only opens another door that leads into another room and shows Stiles through.  
This room is decidedly smaller than the one that holds all the animals’ cages. There are shelves all round the room, making the already very small space feel even more claustrophobic. Most of them are bursting with books upon books, but there are a couple of jars filled with what looks like dried herbs (Stiles is just glad that there isn’t anything floating in any of the containers), some dried peels and what looks like dirt. A small wooden table is standing in the middle of the room.  
  
"Wow, witch doctor haven," Stiles marvels, as Deaton closes the door behind them.  
  
"Not quite, Mr. Stilinski. I would be a warlock, if anything. And although your trust in my abilities flatters me, I assure you that my magical abilities are almost negligible."  
  
"So you’re like a mojo-less Yoda to my Luke?"  
  
"If that is how you want to phrase it,” Deaton gives back and goes over to a small plastic bin that holds an assortment of candles.  
  
Deaton takes out a long white candle and sticks it into a stone with a hole; the candle fits perfectly. He puts the makeshift candelabra into the middle of the table and turns to Stiles.  
  
"You know how your spark feels. Use that. Call this feeling to the forefront of your mind and use your spark."  
  
Stiles is about to ask whether Deaton is going to want him to turn the candle off with his mind, because that is so not in the arsenal of things he thinks his spark can do, when Deaton waves his hand over the candle and lights it. Just like that. With a wave of his hand.  
  
"I thought you said you weren’t a warlock," Stiles says, gaping at the burning candle. If he were a smoker, that would be one useful ability to have.  
  
"I am not. This is about as much I can do. It comes in handy during a power outage, but isn’t good for much else. Now, what I want you to do, is hold your hand into the flame and not get burned."  
  
Almost as if on their own will, Stiles’ hands wander behind his back.  
  
"Doc, seriously, why does my training always involve getting hurt?"  
  
"Pain and fear are the most powerful motivators. Besides," Deaton adds, "if you shield yourself successfully, you won’t be hurt."  
  
"Yeah, right, sure." Stiles nods, then, hoping to stall for time, because that flame really does look really hot, he asks, "Why the cats first?"  
  
Deaton looks at him like he knows exactly that Stiles is trying to do, but humors him anyway.  
  
"You needed to learn to recognize your spark first. Now, you can learn to use it."  
  
"I’m not getting around his, am I?" Stiles asks, but he is already resigned to putting his hand in an open flame. He is also wondering how he is going to explain burned hands to his dad and Derek (oh shit, how is he going to explain this to Derek? Dad is not going to shoot the doc, but Derek might actually consider ripping his throat out.).  
  
"Mr. Stilinski, I am your tutor, not your teacher. I am not going to force you to do this."  
  
Stiles sighs and then holds his hand into the flame, only to pull it right back out barely three seconds later.  
  
"Ow, hot, ow, fuck." He shakes his hand vigorously. "So much for shielding."  
  
"Don’t just think that it will work; you have to believe that it will work. You know that it works, you have seen it, you have felt it."  
  
Stiles rolls back his shoulders and looks at the candle with squinty eyes. This time, he doesn’t hold his whole hand into the flame but only the tips of his fingers.  
  
"Fuckity fuck," he shouts. He blows on his reddened fingertips. "I don’t think I have enough fantasy for this."  
  
Deaton takes Stiles’ hand and sprays some ice spray onto it that he pulled from Stiles doesn’t want to know where. It takes the sting out somewhat, but the skin stays red.  
  
"We can try again tomorrow," Deaton offers.  
  
"No. No, this is some kind of ‘Stop trying to hit me and hit me’, mind over matter bullshit, isn’t it?"  
  
"In a manner of speaking," Deaton agrees and puts his hands behind his back like fucking Morpheus. Stiles is recognizing a clear theme here.  
  
"Well I’m gonna mind the fuck out of this matter."  
  
Stiles closes his eyes. He has never managed to sit still for very long which is why he has never mastered meditation. He figures it would come in handy right now, being able to pull all his focus inward without thinking about it too much. Since his body has the INCLINATION to fidget, he FOCUSES on one small movement, rubbing his thumb back and forth across his other fingers, and then tries to recall how his spark felt when he first deliberately used it, a strange tingly warm in his body, similar to how he feels when Derek is around. He imagines pulling the warmth to the outside and wrapping it around his arms like he did when he was trimming the cats’ claws.  
  
Here, in the strange backroom of the vet’s office, he pulls his spark to his fingertips, thinks of heat there that has nothing to do with flame but comes from within himself.  
  
Stiles takes a deep breath and sticks his fingers into the flame. And holds them there. And holds them there.  
  
Distantly, he can feel the candle’s flame licking at his fingertips, like he is standing directly in the sun. No burning, just a gentle tickling.  
  
He doesn’t know how much time has passed when he opens his eyes again, but it doesn’t matter.  
  
"I did it," he shouts, when he opens his eyes again.  
  
"Indeed. Congratulations." Deaton smiles at him, a rare sight, and then adds, "Do it again."  
  
Stiles doesn’t know whether to scream for joy or exasperation; the two emotions go hand in hand for him when dealing with Deaton. In the end, he settles for rolling his eyes at the vet and then does it again. And again.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
His dad’s cruiser is already in the driveway when Stiles pulls up to the house later that night, giddy with success. The more often he tried, the less he had to think about actively turning his spark into a shield. Deaton would engage him in small talk and then randomly tell him to stick his hand into the flame and Stiles would do it and not get burned. It’s amazing, feeling like he is finally making actual progress in being able to control something he didn’t even know he had or could do.  
He parks Betty neatly next to the cruiser and jumps out, whistling ‘Come and Get It’ as he unlocks the front door.  
  
"Dad, I’m home."  
  
His dad pokes his head out of the kitchen, apron over a washed out Ohio State t-shirt and his favorite, almost washed to death gray sweatpants.  
  
"The prodigal son returns," the sheriff says, waving a spatula in Stiles’ general direction, splattering a little bit of red sauce as he does.  
  
"Are you cooking?"  
  
"No, son." His dad disappears back into the kitchen. "I’m knitting."  
  
"Well, that’s a relief," Stiles answers and kicks off his shoes to add them to the pile by the door (they still haven’t bought a shoe rack; they tried, once, and went to Target, but the selection was so overwhelming and the racks could do increasingly more ridiculous things that they left without buying anything and without looking at anyone. They went to McDonald’s to get over the weird feeling). "Because you remember my chemistry accident, and I remember what happened the last time you tried to cook anything that wasn’t breakfast related. The burn marks are still on that pan, dad."  
  
Stiles walks into the kitchen where, to his horror, his dad is actually standing at the stove, three of the burners turned on and three pots bubbling away merrily. There is a cutting board in the sink and vegetable scraps on the counter top.  
  
"Well, this doesn’t look like knitting."  
  
"Come on, kiddo, I thought I’d give this whole cooking lark another go."  
  
"Why? Do you have a girlfriend? Did you go to a doctor, is there something wrong? Are you sending me to military school? What did I do?"  
  
"You have a very overactive imagination," the sheriff says, shaking his head fondly. "No, I don’t have a girlfriend, and no, I didn’t go to any doctor. I just figured that with you going off to college in a bit … I mean, I can’t just live off steaks forever."  
  
"First, dad that makes me so proud. Almost fifty and finally all grown up." Stiles playfully tussles his hair. "I don’t even know where I’m going to college yet."  
  
"You were always talking about Berkeley."  
  
"I mentioned Berkeley once, dad. But I didn’t have Derek back then and –"  
  
"Is he asking you to stay here? Because, Stiles –"  
  
"No, dad, no, just no. Derek is not telling me to do anything. We haven’t really talked about it yet, but he is almost as subtle as you, leaving college brochures everywhere he goes. I found one in the bathroom last week!"  
  
This actually makes his dad look pleased. Stiles can already see many, many more brochures in his future, all the brochures (somewhere, a small forest is probably already crying).  
  
The next moment, the pot behind the sheriff stars sizzling slightly menacingly and both men turn their attention to the spaghetti that, somehow (and Stiles didn’t even know that was possible), have burned and are stuck to the pot like strange yellow-black worms.  
  
"How, dad, how, did you manage to burn pasta?" Stiles asks, trying to scrape the worst of the mess out of the pot so he can dump it in the dishwasher. "You did put water in, right?"  
  
"Yes, Stiles, I know that you cook spaghetti in water."  
  
"Then how –"  
  
"I plead the fifth."  
  
  


* * *

  
  
The sauce his father whipped up ends up actually tasting good (after Stiles introduced it to salt and pepper) and Stiles makes some more spaghetti (he bans his dad to the edge of the kitchen just to be sure; who knows, his dad might have a spark that kills noodles).  
  
When they carry their plates over to the dinner table, Stiles also grabs a candle from the drawer of random stuff. He promised his dad, after everything with the Alpha twins, to keep him in the loop with anything supernatural-related. "I’m the sheriff, son, it’s my job to protect this town," his father had said and then put a hand on Stiles’ shoulder and added, "And I’m also your father, and it’s my job to protect you, too. The most important job I have, kiddo. Okay?"  
And while it might be slightly daunting to be completely open with his dad (sometimes he still wishes his dad didn’t know about werewolves, could be kept safe by his ignorance), it is also a great relief that he doesn’t have to lie to him about this, about all the strange and scary things that are suddenly part of his life.  
  
"By the way, daddy-o," Stiles says, when they are halfway through their food, and pulls the candle out of his jeans pocket. "I have a trick to show you."  
  
"Is this gonna be like third grade, when you wanted to be a magician?" his dad asks, eyebrows raised.  
  
"No, Mr. Doubter, this is going to be some serious spark action."  
  
"Has the doc finally come up with a better method to _teach you_ than having Scott beat you up?"  
  
The only person more pissed off about Deaton’s first idea to activate Stiles’ spark than Derek was the sheriff and somehow Stiles loves his Dad even more for it.  
  
"Yes, dad. You don’t need to look in his direction threateningly anymore whenever you see him somewhere."  
  
"I’ll be the judge of that," the sheriff says and puts down his utensils. "So, magic me."  
  
There’s a beat of silence.  
  
"That sounded better in your head, didn’t it?" Stiles asks, laughing.  
  
"Turn on that candle, son."  
  
"That didn’t really sound any better –"  
  
"Stiles," the sheriff interrupts him, "Do your magic trick, so I can decide whether I need to freak out."  
  
Stiles pulls out the lighter Deaton gave him and lights his candle with it.  
  
"I was kinda thinking you were gonna light that with magic."  
  
"Disappointed?"  
  
"Depends on what you’re actually going to do," his dad says, a shit eating grin on his face.  
  
Instead of answering, Stiles takes a deep breath and wraps his spark around his hand, which he then holds into the flame.  
  
At first, his dad only looks slightly confused, but as more time passes his eyebrows rise and his eyes grow big. After fifteen seconds, he leans over the table and rips Stiles’ hand away from the candle, almost toppling the candle in the process.  
  
"Jesus, kid," he says, turning Stiles’ hand around in his larger ones, looking for redness or burns. When he doesn’t find any, he adds, "That is one magic trick."  
  
Stiles nods, and spends the rest of the night answering his dad’s questions as best he can, which is to say barely, since he has himself barely scratched the surface.  
  
When they reach the end of Stiles’ knowledge about his spark powers, and his dad seems to have come to term with having seen the actual manifestation of his son’s magic, they end up making up what they don’t yet know.  
  
"Maybe you’ll be able to repel idiots," his dad suggests, wiping tears of laughter out of the corners of his eyes.  
  
"I’d be throwing people left and right, dad. You’d have to do all the shopping!"  
  
His dad almost chokes on his beer, coughing and laughing at the same time. It’s a very good night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A day early, look at me!


	3. spotlight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Stiles is the center of attention.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There be smut. If that ain't your thing, please skip to after the first line.

This is, hands down, Stiles’ favorite way to wake up, with Derek’s head pressed against his hip, snuffling against the strip of skin above the waistband of his boxers, cuddling Stiles’ leg like a teddy bear.  
He doesn’t want to, not for one second, imagine what it would be like to not have this.  
  
Next to him, Derek huffs in his sleep and burrows even closer into Stiles’ hip.  
  
"You’re such a puppy," Stiles whispers and drags his hand through Derek’s hair, which is incredibly soft. Derek keeps insisting that he uses only bar soap but Stiles totally calls bullshit on that. No one with hair like that doesn’t at least use conditioner (he is already planning on staking out the showers at the Hale’s place to once and for all discover the true magic behind Derek’s magic hair).  
  
"Am not," Derek grumbles, although it end up sounding more like ‘mot’.  
  
"So you’re the big bad wolf and I’m Little Red Riding Hood?"  
  
Derek turns his head up to look at Stiles with one half-opened eye.  
  
"You’d look good in red," he mumbles and nips at Stiles’ skin.  
  
"Don’t start something you can’t finish," Stiles says, but doesn’t move to stop Derek, who slowly works his way across Stiles’ hip in little bites and licks.  
  
"I intend to finish this," Derek gives back smugly, lips still moving against Stiles’ skin.  
  
"Oh that was just bad," Stiles moans and buries his hand back in Derek’s hair.  
  
"Big bad wolf," Derek replies. His eyes flash gold and he shows his fangs for just a moment.  
  
Derek can probably smell how much it turns Stiles on whenever he lets loose a little and allows his more wolfish tendencies to shine through a little when they are together, both in bed and outside of it (Stiles really hadn’t expected to like being manhandled so much). Now, Derek tends to sprawl across Stiles whenever he gets the chance to and seems less self-conscious about it even when the sheriff is in the room. Stiles enjoys it a lot, but most of all he is glad that Derek doesn’t freak out anymore whenever there’s a hint of fang in the bedroom.  
  
"Are you now?" Stiles asks, easily joining Derek’s playful mood. "You know dad worked the late shift, right? So he could be home any –" Stiles presses an open-mouthed kiss to Derek’s lips, "minute now."  
  
Derek surges after Stiles’ lips when he draws back a little.  
  
"I’ll hear him," he says, trying to pull Stiles back into a deep kiss.  
  
"Remember you said that the last time? I couldn’t look him in the face for a week," Stiles gives back, lips hovering just so against Derek’s.  
  
A blush stains across Derek’s cheeks and Stiles can’t help but drag his nose across it.  
  
"Your neighbors had very loud music on."  
  
There’s a pout on Derek’s face and Stiles has to lean into him and kiss him again. This kiss turns into another and then one more and before Stiles knows it, his t-shirt is lying discarded next to the bed and he is smothered under one very warm and firm werewolf.  
  
"You want to stop?" Derek asks, already pulling his own shirt over his head, messing up his hair even more in the process; his t-shirt joins Stiles’ on the floor.  
  
Getting caught more than half-naked by his dad while making out with his boyfriend seems a small price to pay in the light of these abs. Stiles would, if he had any talent in that direction whatsoever, write and sing odes to Derek’s body (and also punch anyone in the face who would so much as imply that he was only with Derek because the wolf is hot; Derek is hot like burning, but Stiles has seen pictures of him when he was fourteen, still skinny and with buck teeth and Stiles doesn’t doubt that he would have fallen in love with Derek all the same).  
  
A very pointed nip to his right nipple draws Stiles out of his head.  
  
"Am I ignoring you, babe?" he asks and draws his palm up and down Derek’s sides, pushing Derek’s boxers down a little on the down stroke.  
  
In answer, Derek pulls Stiles into another kiss, big hands cradling his head like it’s something incredibly precious, rubbing against him at the same time like a large cat. Stiles groans and bucks up, chasing delicious friction against his dick. As one of Derek’s hands wanders down to grip his ass possessively, Stiles groans.  
  
"Okay, okay, you have my undivided attention."  
  
He pushes Derek’s boxers all the way down over his ass, palming the supernaturally hot skin (it still blows – no pun intended – his mind that _he_ is allowed to touch this man) and pulling Derek against him again. Their dicks rub against each other and even through the material of Stiles’ boxers the feeling is absolutely incredible.  
  
Sex in the morning is easy between them, nothing fancy. They’re both not completely awake yet, their bodies still a little lethargic and neither of them wants to do calisthenics this early. Instead they rub off against each other, lips locked, hand wandering and grabbing, until they’re both sticky and sweaty. Derek, show-off that he is, pushes himself off the bed in a one-handed push-up to hover over Stiles. He doesn’t take his eyes off him as he reaches down to worm his hand into Stiles’ boxers and then encompasses both their dicks with his hand. Stiles’ eyes slam shut at the sudden heat and pressure.  
  
"Fuck, Derek," he breathes, mouth open. He turns to the side to bite at Derek’s arm, worrying at the soft and thin skin on the underside of his forearms. He probably won’t be able to focus long enough to leave a hickey, but he’ll give it his best shot.  
  
"Yes," Derek says and starts working his hand up and down harder, leaving both of them gasping for breath.  
  
The single brain cell that Stiles has leftsends a brief prayer up to whoever is currently on duty that his dad doesn’t come home right now, but then Derek pushes his thumb along the slit of Stiles’ dick and Stiles has to stop thinking and just be along for the ride. One of his hands is tangled in the blanket while the other is threaded through Derek’s hair. Stiles pulls the werewolf down to mash their mouths to together, which quickly turns into breathing into each other’s mouths.  
  
"So close," Stiles moans. If Derek wasn’t just as quick to come as he, Stiles might feel a little embarrassed about his hair trigger, but Derek looks to be just as close as Stiles is.  
  
"Good," Derek growls and bites Stiles’ lip, just the good side of too hard. He pairs the bite with another flick of his wrist and a hard thrust of his hips and that’s it, Stiles is gone. He comes hard, body bowing, hands scrabbling at Derek’s shoulders, just holding on.  
  
Through the haze of his orgasm, lights flickering at the edge of his vision, Stiles can hear Derek’s breaths get shorter, feel the tugs on their dicks get sloppier. He drops a hand down across the front of Derek’s body, over his pecs and a nipple, which makes Derek jerk, to join his hand. It only takes a couple of tugs from their joint hands before Derek is spilling over their fingers, come dripping over their wrists.  
  
Derek flops down next to Stiles, still shivering, and absentmindedly wipes his hand off on Stiles’ stomach.  
  
"Ew, thank you."  
  
"You’re welcome," Derek grunts and starts grinning. "Besides, you’re already dirty."  
  
He points down to where most of their spunk is drying on Stiles’s stomach.  
  
"Oh, double ew."  
  
Stiles rubs at the tacky liquid that has also made it into his navel. Next to him, Derek preens.  
  
"Oh, oh, you like this, don’t you? Me smelling like your come?" Derek stiffens a little and Stiles drops a kiss onto his shoulder. "You Neanderthal."  
  
Because Stiles is an awesome boyfriend, and doesn’t truly mind being covered in things that will come off in the shower, he rubs two fingers through the pool of come and paints a line up his stomach. The action elicits a pleased growl from Derek.  
  
"Enjoy it while you can, buddy, because I am so taking a shower as soon as I can feel my legs again."  
  
  


* * *

  
  
Half an hour later, both freshly showered (separately, because there is only so much restraint Stiles has when naked, wet Derek is involved), they’re sitting down for breakfast. Stiles has his bowl of Snackimals and Derek a bowl of some kind of muesli that one day appeared in the Stilinski pantry. Both of them are cradling the biggest Stilinski mugs of coffee, because while caffein, like many other things, has no real effect on werewolves, Derek is still addicted to it.  
  
They finish their breakfast in silence, broken only once by the arrival of the sheriff home from his shift. The quiet between them is effortless in its ease; they are just two morning grouches enjoying their breakfast and trying not to fall asleep and dunk their faces into hot coffee.  
When they have finished eating, they carry their things to the kitchen and wash up, standing together at the sink. If Stiles wasn’t so fucking happy, he’s be making vomiting noises at how sappy they’re being.  
  
"So," Derek starts, drying the spoon Stiles has just handed him, "what are your plans for Thursday?"  
  
"Why, what’s Thursday?"  
  
Derek throws him a particularly unimpressed look.  
  
"Kidding," Stiles says, handing over the second spoon. "Well, dad’s got to work, so I’m open for any and all surprise parties."  
  
"Well, the pack wanted to have you over for a non-surprising dinner. Would that work, too?"  
  
"A pack party for me?" Stiles whispers, pressing his hands to his heart. He might be joking about it, but it is one of the best pre-birthday gifts he has ever received to know that there is more than one person interested in making his birthday special.  
  
"We all love you."  
  
"I love you guys, too," Stiles says and presses Derek against the kitchen counter with soapy fingers, leaving water droplets on his neck and arms.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
His last birthday, Stiles had breakfast by himself because his dad had taken an early shift so he would be free to take Stiles out to dinner that night. He had coffee straight from the carafe and toaster waffles he couldn’t toast because their toaster had broken three weeks before and neither he nor his dad had cared enough to replace it yet.  
  
This birthday, his nineteenth, and boy is he glad to have lived this far, starts with his phone almost vibrating off the bed because of all the messages he gets from his friends and Derek's family. He stares at the screen – 13 new messages – and feels giddy; he knows people. He, Stiles don't-even-try-to-pronounce-my-real-first-name Stilinski, has friends and an extended family and a boyfriend and a pack. He wishes his eleven-year-old self could see him now.  
  
He rolls himself out of bed, literally, a lot easier than he normally does. His dad will be waiting downstairs, with middle-of-the-week pancakes and coffee and _presents_. Stiles isn't all about the presents, but just the thought that someone would take the time to think of what to give him makes him all tingly (not the morning wood kind of tingly, the other kind).  
Even though he's tempted to just throw on yesterday's jeans and t-shirt, he takes the time to pick out clean clothes. The Hales have invited him over for dinner after school because his dad has to work a late shift and though by now Derek's family has seen almost all of his shirts (and, one memorable, never to be spoken of again time they have seen him without a shirt), he doesn't really want to turn up for his birthday dinner wearing a shirt with tzatziki stains on it. In the end, he settles on his second best pair of jeans (the best pair is just slightly too tight and therefore not made for day you plan to eat lots of amazing food on) and the only long-sleeved shirt he owns, bought three years ago in a ridiculous attempt to add non-graphic tees and non-plaid items to his wardrobe. It's a little tight around the shoulders, lacrosse and training with Scott over the summer has has actually made him bulk up, but it does give him a hint of that Chris Evans-dorito look and _hello_ is Stiles okay with that.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
"A very good morning to you, daddy-o!" Stiles singsongs, floating into the kitchen on a birthday cloud.  
  
The sheriff is already in his uniform, but the top three buttons of his shirt are still undone and his hair looks like he just walked through a tropical rainstorm.  
  
"Morning, kiddo," he says, and pulls Stiles into a hug. "Happy Birthday."  
  
"Thanks, dad," Stiles says, squeezing his dad again before letting go and pouring the coffee his dad already brewed into two mugs. He turns to give one mug to his dad and almost spills coffee everywhere.  
  
"Nineteen years old," the sheriff says and shakes his head, only just saving his coffee from premature death. "Unbelievable."  
  
"Makes you feel old, dad? Don't worry, you're still hot as burning."  
  
Stiles takes a sip of his coffee and promptly burns his tongue.  
  
"Coming from my still underaged son, that is in no way reassuring, but I was actually thinking that I find it unbelievable that you are nineteen because most of the time you act like a five-year-old and whenever you don't, you run into doors or get your hands stuck in the dishwasher."  
  
"That is –" Stiles starts indignantly, then deflates. "Sadly surprisingly accurate. You do know all the worst things about me."  
  
"Father's prerogative."  
  
  


* * *

  
  
They drink their coffee and eat the donuts the sheriff bought the night before and stashed in the underwear drawer of his dresser. When Stiles argues that it was an exaggerated safety precaution, his father reminds him that Stiles once ate a whole chocolate cake in one sitting and there is no such thing as exaggerated when it come to protecting sweets from Stiles.  
  
When they have licked all the icing off their fingers, the sheriff goes upstairs and comes back carrying a bunch of wrapped parcels.  
  
"Where those in your underwear drawer, too?" Stiles asks, eyeing the presents, all wrapped in different superhero-themed wrapping paper, dubiously.  
  
"No comment."  
  
"For some reason, I find that a lot more disturbing than the underwear-donuts," Stiles says, but gleefully starts ripping into the colorful paper anyway.  
  
Under the paper there is a new jacket (leather with teddy fleece inside), a voucher for gas and the comic book store, and an _X-Men_ movies Box Set (the original ones, not the reboot ones with glistening blue Jennifer Laurence).  
  
Stiles looks at the pile of presents, a pile of ripped up wrapping paper right next to it, and then at his dad with his eyes big and his mouth hanging open.  
  
"Dad," he whispers. "You just bought me a jeep. This is too much."  
  
"Kiddo," his dad says in his no-nonsense cop voice he usually only uses on kids destroying mailboxes with baseball bats, "I only have the one son, let me spoil him a bit. And now try on the jacket."  
  
Stiles tries on the jacket.  
  
And immediately falls in love with it. It is _so fluffy_. It feels like being wrapped up in a cloud and cuddling Derek _at the same time_ and it will have to be pried off Stiles’ cold, dead body because he is never taking it off.  
  
"Oh, this is even softer than Derek," Stiles moans, then quickly adds, "Don’t tell him I said that!"  
  
"My lips are sealed," the sheriff promises and looks on fondly as Stiles all but fondles the jacket (it’s definitely not the strangest thing he has ever seen his son do).  
  
  


* * *

  
  
The school day, for once, passes quickly, in a whirlwind of well-wishes from the pack, strange motivational speeches about adulthood from coach Finstock, and a whole lot of classes that Stiles barely remembers.  
  
By some birthday miracle, Stiles and the pack makes it through the day with getting detention from Harris, who normally seems to have a sixth sense for when Stiles is feeling just the slightest bit happy.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
The front of the Hale house, when he gets there in the Jeep with Scott and Allison – Jackson and Cora drove themselves and took the others – looks kind of like a kid’s birthday party threw up on it. There are balloons in every color of the rainbow everywhere and garlands strung up over the front door and the windows.  
  
"Wow." Stiles whistles, leaning against the door of the jeep. "Do you go this all out for all birthdays?"  
  
"Pretty much?" Scott shrugs. "And holidays and report card day."  
  
Allison comes around the car to stand next to Scott, who immediately puts his arm around her shoulders because those two are like some kind of un-incestuous Jaime and Cersei twin couple with less children being tossed out of towers, adds, "I think Talia enjoys any chance she gets to let loose a little and leave the office early."  
  
"Well," Stiles claps his hands, "Today I’m very glad to give her an excuse."  
  
  


* * *

  
  
The inside of the house looks marginally less birthday-puked on. There are less balloon than outside and no garlands anywhere. Issie is wearing a purple-pink party hat she proudly presents to Stiles like it’s the crown jewels. Stiles accepts it with a deep bow.  
Behind him, Lydia and the others stumble in, wolves already tussling, although Isaac is walking a little behind the rest. They all duck into the kitchen to say hello to Andrew, who is putting the finishing touches on a mountain of chocolate cupcakes, iced with silver-colored buttercream. He doesn’t look up from his piping, adding more buttercream to some of the cupcakes, but still manages to deflect Scott’s questing fingers when he reaches to taste some of the buttercream left in the mixing bowl.  
  
"Out with you, heathens. I’m almost done here. Go and make sure Talia hasn’t strangled herself with party supplies in the living room. Scott, Stiles, stay here a second."  
  
The others troop out again, Allison bussing Scott’s cheek first like she can’t bear to be separated from him (they’re the worst, the absolute worst, Stiles thinks, absolutely not waiting for Derek to get here).  
  
"First of all," Andrew says, holding out the cupcake he just finished decorating, "Happy birthday, Stiles. First pack birthday gift."  
  
Gleefully, Stiles bites into the sugary goodness that is Andrew’s baking. It’s almost as good as his Nana’s, not that he is ever going to tell her that. His Nana is one fierce small woman, who could probably kill a man with a cabbage.  
  
"Fank you!" he mumbles around he bite of cupcake.  
  
Scott is slowly scooting closer, trying to angle himself so that he can take a bite out the cupcake, too.  
  
"You are not stealthy," Stiles gets out and pivots to the left, leaving Scott with a wonderful view of his back.  
  
"I’m your best friend, Stiles! Just a tiny bite!"  
  
"My birthday, my cupcake!" Stiles crows and stuffs the rest of the muffin into his mouth in one piece. He’d honestly rather choke on this glorious baked good then share it.  
  
"You are a savage," Scott grumbles.  
  
"He’s in good company, then," Andrew says. "Scott, can you get Isaac something to drink, please? He was looking a bit pale earlier."  
  
Stiles turns back to Scott, brows pulled together in silent question, mouth still full.  
  
"It’s a new moon today," Scott explains, already pulling a carton of orange juice out of the fridge."When you’re kind of recently turned it, it fucks you up a bit."  
  
Stiles eyes the orange juice and swallows.  
  
"And that helps?"  
  
"Not really," Scott admits, "but it tastes good."  
  
In the living room, Talia hasn’t yet managed to strangle herself with any party decorations, although she does have a strand of fairy lights completely tangled around her right arm and looks to be about two seconds away from shredding it to bits with her claws. Allison, because she is an actual angel, immediately goes over to help her.  
  
Off to the side, Isaac, looking indeed a bit pale, has his head on Cora’s shoulder. Erica and Boyd are crowded around them and Erica is gently carding through Isaac’s hair.  
  
"Juice incoming!" Scott shouts and chucks the carton toward his friends.  
  
Boyd plugs it out of the air, salutes Scott and hands it to Isaac, who doesn’t even lift his head to finish off the rest of the carton. He does actually look slightly better when he crumples up the empty carton and throws it back at Scott, who is looking at Allison ardently. The carton ball hits him square in the side of the face and Scott’s eyes flash golden.  
  
"Not during the new moon, Scott!" Talia cautions and lifts an eyebrow in a way that Stiles wishes he could emulate (his own eyebrow, whenever he tries to do the ‘Excuse you?’, always ends up looking like a worm having a seizure).  
  
"Sorry," Scott says, rubbing his neck.  
  
Talia nods and looks down to where Allison is doing her best to free her arm from the fairy lights, which seem to have become even more tangled.  
  
"Thank you, Allison," Talia says. "I don’t think it’s worth the effort."  
  
The next second, the fairy lights are confetti on the floor and Derek only just stops Issie from throwing herself onto the shreds to bathe in them.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
After dinner and dessert, Stiles barely has time to lick the icing off his fingers, before Scott bounces into his lap and shoves a present, wrapped in High School Musical wrapping paper, into his face.  
  
"Presents time!" he crows, bouncing up and down like a toddler on Christmas morning.  
  
Like the codependent annoying, double-date-going couples that they are, Scott, Allison, Erica and Boyd have pooled their money to buy him all season of _Game of Thrones_ in the collectors box that’s shaped like the Iron Throne. They card they have added shows a dog and says in bright glitter pen ‘We wuff you! Happy Birthday!’  
  
Stiles hugs the card close after thanking them and vows to treasure it forever.  
  
Isaac pushes a gift bag to Stiles next. Inside, there are three Hawkeye comics Stiles is still missing for his collection.  
  
"How did you even know?" Stiles asks, carefully petting the purple covers of one of the comics.  
  
"Please, as if anyone didn’t hear you rant about how the comic book store was purposefully sabotaging your attempts to complete your collection."  
  
"Dude, that was, like, two months ago."  
  
"It was a very memorable rant, okay?" Isaac says. He’s smiling but there is the tiniest glimmer of gold in Isaac’s eyes.  
  
"Alright, wolf-boy, thanks a bunch," Stiles says and vows to keep his sarcasm away from young wolves during the new moon.  
  
Derek has shimmied closer and closer to Stiles and now pushes Scott of Stiles’ lap to plaster himself to Stiles’ side, growling when Cora moves to push her own crudely wrapped present across the table. Cora rolls her eyes, but sinks back into her chair.  
  
"Fine. Neanderthal," she grumbles.  
  
Derek huffs like a very pleased dog (oh the dog jokes) and hands over a black box with a golden bow on top. Inside is a bright red hoodie that’s almost as soft as Derek’s fur (though not as soft as his new jacket).  
  
"Admit it, you just like me in red," Stiles says, leering at Derek, who blushes a pretty rose color.  
  
"Just – put it on, see if it fits."  
  
"Love you, too, boo," Stiles gives back.  
  
He pulls the new hoodie on over his button up and flicks up the hood. It’s a perfect fit, much better than any other hoodie he owns.  
  
"Ooh, nice. You like?"  
  
"You look good enough to eat," Derek whispers against Stiles’ ear, which means that of course all the werewolves hear it perfectly well. They dissolve into communal gagging noises, except for Scott and Allison, who get in a little of their own smooching, and Issie, who uses everyone’s inattention to swipe another cupcake and happily stick her face into the frosting.  
  
Lydia and Jackson’s gift, obviously professionally wrapped (not that Stiles thought Lydia would ever buy, let alone use, something as mundane as wrapping paper) contains rainbow Converse with a designer logo on the side. Stiles has salivated over those shoes often enough to know that the originals are not cheep. He says as much to Lydia, who waves his protest off and says, "They are still terrible shoes, but at least these are designer, which means I won’t have to throw up every time I look at them." Stiles grins at her; coming from Lydia, that makes this basically a BFF friendship bracelet.  
  
He gets a picture from Issie, stick people in different colors of brown, black and gray with big teeth in front of a slightly wonky house. Talia and Andrew hand him a small box that contains a single key on a keyring that has a leather keychain attached. The triskelion, the same one he has spent hours tracing on Derek’s back with his fingertips, is embossed in silver on the black leather. There is a handmade card – Bambi wearing a wolf costume – that says ‘This Bambi bites. Happy Birthday, Stiles’. It’s clearly both Laura’s kind of humor and her handwriting and Stiles is going to hug her so hard when she’s back from work work.  
  
"Thank you," he says, rubbing at his eyes, and clicks the key and the keyring to the one already in his pocket, where they lie like a warm weight.  
  
"You’re part of the pack," Talia simply says.  
  
Cora hands over her gift last and under old newspapers Stiles finds a framed picture of himself and Derek cuddling on the Hales’ couch. The frame is a deep black, that shines with the same bluish tint as Derek’s fur. Before Stiles can thank Cora (it’s an awesome gift; for some reason Derek hates having his picture taken more than he hates getting wet when in his wolf form), she reaches across the table to punch his arm – lightly, and if that isn’t a sign that it’s a special day, he doesn’t know what is – and says, "Don’t thank me, mushy."  
  
(Cora, too, is going to so get hugged later.)  
  
  


* * *

  
  
Once all the gifts are opened and the cupcakes are almost completely devoured, everything dissolves into barely-controlled chaos.  
  
Issie demands to get a ride on Derek’s shoulders and Derek, because he is an awesome brother, obliges her. He gets spurred around Cora, Isaac and Scott, who are having a stare-off over the last remaining cupcake that Scott is currently cradling against his chest like a newborn.  
  
"I live here, it’s mine," Cora argues and tries to swipe it out of Scott’s arms.  
  
Scott, one hand still around the cupcake, karate chops her arm to deflect her hand.  
  
"We said no home field advantage!"  
  
"That was for Monopoly!"  
  
From where he is stacking plates (because even on his birthday Stiles can’t just leave all the cleaning up to Talia and Andrew), Stiles throws Allison a ‘What can you do, wolves right?’. Allison, sandwiched between Erica and Boyd on the couch, only rolls her eyes and then turns back to look at whatever it is that Erica is showing them on her phone.  
  
Talia takes the stack of plates from Stiles and shoos him over to the others and Stiles lets himself be shooed.  
  
It’s probably because he’s defending the cupcake against both Cora and Isaac’s speedy fingers that Scott doesn’t realize that Stiles is creeping up on him until he has already plucked the cupcake out of Scott’s hand.  
  
"Mine!" he crows in victory and underlines his claim by licking a stripe across the frosting with his tongue.  
  
Isaac and Cora pull equally disgusted face, but Scott isn’t his best friend for nothing. He snorts, steals the cupcake right back out of Stiles’ hand and takes a big bite that’s mostly frosting.  
  
"Eh." Stiles shrugs and also takes a bite of cupcake, Scott-spit and all. Scott’s his best friend, after all, so it’s all staying in the family, he figures.  
  
"Oh, ew, men," Cora groans and turns away as if she can’t stand to even look at her male packmates.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
Later – three minutes, five hours, six days, three fucking weeks later, Stiles still won’t be able to recall why or exactly how it happened. He was laughing, wiping at Scott’s frosting-coated cheek, eyes immediately searching for Derek like they always do, like they are drawn to him like magnets to the north, like all of Stiles’ happiness is increased if he can share it with Derek.  
  
The next moment, Isaac, jostled by Cora, stumbles into Stiles. Stiles windmills his arms, trying to grab onto something to hold himself up and his hand lands on Isaac’s bare forearm. There’s a second of absolute stillness and then tiny blue sparks start dancing around Stiles’ hand and Isaac is being thrown straight across the room.  
  
The wolf hits the wall with a muted thump. A couple of framed family portraits fall of their nails. Isaac is up again the next second, crouched down low, eyes gleaming fully golden and face contorted in the strange in-between wolf-man way, all long canines and furry muttonchops and barely any eyebrows worth mentioning. There is a growl working its way out of his throat.  
  
Stiles looks at his hands in surprise. He barely manages to use his abilities on purpose; except for the time with the Alpha brothers, he hasn’t managed to use them like this on purpose.  
  
Isaac vaults across the sofa in the blink of an eye and the other wolves crowd closer around Stiles, putting themselves between the new moon-crazed Isaac and squishy Stiles. There are already claws showing, and while Stiles doesn’t think anyone really intents to mangle anyone today, he really doesn’t want to get in the way of a (another) tussle of werewolves. As he moves back, trying to push between Scott and Cora, he trips over a fold in the carpet. Nothing stops his fall this time. He lands on his ass hard and his forearm scrapes against he corner of the couch tables’ glass top, drawing a hot line across his skin.  
  
There is another growl, louder than the others and more menacing. Derek vaults over the couch (Stiles really hopes he set Issie down before) and goes straight for Isaac, claws fully out. The look on his face almost scares Stiles, open anger and animal rage. His arms burns, but he pushes himself up anyway. He doesn’t want Isaac impaled and he even more doesn’t want Derek to impale a packmate in a rage; he’d never forgive himself.  
  
"Derek!" He scrabbles upright and pushes past the others. "Derek!"  
  
Isaac and Derek are already literally at each other’s throats, so closely intertwined that it’s almost impossible to tell where one starts and the other begins. It is, Stiles thinks, a gruesome mirror image of how Derek and he woke up yesterday.  
  
Before he can reach out to pull Derek out of the ball that is Isaac-and-Derek right now, Scott pulls Stiles back by his shirt, like Stiles is a misbehaving kitten.  
  
"Don’t," Scott says, "he might hurt you."  
  
"Derek would never hurt me," Stiles gives back, struggling against Scott’s hold.  
  
"He’s not in control," Scott says, but Stiles has managed to peel out of his new hoodie. He leaves it dangling in Scott’s grip and moves toward the cluster of wolf again. He is almost there, when Talia’s voice rings out across the room like the boom of thunder.  
  
"Isaac! Derek!"  
  
All the wolves in motion stop immediately. Isaac drops to the floor, the wolf leaving his face, and hugs one arm over his head. Cora is at his side in an instant, pulling his forehead against her own, whispering softly into his ear.  
  
Stiles swears he can feel the wolves at his back stiffen and stop, too.  
  
Over the forms of his sister and his packmate, huddled close together, Derek’s eyes meet Stiles’, teeth still bared but his face already back to human. There are so many emotions flitting over Derek’s face in that single moment, Stiles doesn’t manage to name any of them.  
Derek’s eyes scan down Stiles’ body, coming to rest on his arm. His face becomes an inscrutable mask. Stiles follows his eyes. The table corner left a shallow, small cut near his elbow, barely more than a thin red line, but blood is dripping down Stiles’ fingers, staining the carpet.  
  
They look at each other and Stiles makes his feet move to breach the two steps that still separate them. He is there, right there, close enough to touch finally, when Derek turns away.  
  
And then he is a wolf again and out the patio door and then out of sight.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
Stiles barely feels Talia taking his hand and guiding him to the couch, where she sits him down and talks to him in a quiet and measured voice while Andrew cleans up his arm and puts a bandage around the cut. He doesn’t hear her, he doesn’t hear Isaac apologizing over and over, he doesn’t feel the sting of antiseptic spray.  
  
He is outside, running through the dark, searching the pack’s land for a wolf.  
  
‘Derek was supposed to stay,’ he thinks, ‘He was supposed to stay.’  
  
Stiles doesn’t know where this seemingly intrinsic knowledge comes from, but it is there, right next to his spark: Derek is supposed to be with him, no matter what.  
  
It feels like something inside of him has been pulled taut, almost to the point of snapping. His chest aches. He wonders if nineteen is too young to have a heart attack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am aware that according to fandom, Stiles birthday is April 8th; sometimes people use Dylan's birthday which is August 26th. Neither of those dates, however, fit with my story, so I went with October 27th, because I can.
> 
> Also, for anyone who is interested: I have indeed, at one point in my life, been in possession of High School Musical wrapping paper and have spent quite a while gleefully wrapping any and all presents with it.


End file.
